eCommerce leaders constantly seek ways to improve efficiency, reduce errors, and scale their businesses. Caraway, a rapidly growing DTC brand known for non-toxic kitchenware, recently shared their journey of operational transformation in a joint webinar with our very own Kabir Samtani and Parabola. Joined by Katya Lotzof, Associate Director, Logistics and Fulfillment Operations, we go deep into how the brand optimized their processes and drove growth.

Like many growing brands, Caraway faced many challenges as their business expanded:

• Time-consuming manual processes
• Lack of real-time inventory visibility
• Difficulty in accurately allocating landed costs
• Limited ability to manage complex order fulfillment across multiple channels

These issues were slowing down their teams and impacting the customer experience and the company's ability to make data-driven decisions.

Integrated solutions for operational excellence

To make it all possible, Caraway used Fulfil jointly with Parabola, an automation software, to build custom workflows. With these two systems, the brand was able to reduce errors and improve operational efficiency.

They focused on three key areas of improvement:

• Order management
• Landed cost allocation
• Stock position visibility

In this article, we'll dive into how using Fulfil with Parabola improved Caraway's operations through strategic integrations of their systems.

1. Order management

For Caraway, the past looked like a lot of manual processes for order routing and backorder releases often took 1-2 hours per day, with constant system crashes forcing their team to start over.

Before using Fulfil and Parabola, Caraway used an OMS where simple edits became tedious; workarounds increased workloads, manual inventory management, and the data was often incomplete. Plus, the system was crashing, forcing them to restart the process.

"At the beginning, the OMS was working for us, but with the growth, the volume of orders was increasing rapidly. And we started encountering issues on a daily basis." - Katya Lotzof, Associated Director, Logistics and Fulfillment Operations, Caraway 

Efficient reporting for robust order management

Now equipped with a better order management system, Fulfil served as the primary source of truth for all orders. This enabled Caraway to pull data via our API, shipping information from EasyPost, and combine the information into Parabola to create the crucial "Pre-transit report."

With this report, the Caraway team was able to quickly identify stuck orders, notify their 3PL partners, and be proactive with customers: "At the same time, we can reach out to our customers instead of them reaching out. We can tell them that we know that the order is late and that we can work on it."

For Caraway, this meant multiple hours saved and significantly improved customer experience.

2. Landed cost allocation

The spreadsheet. The one we all both hate and love at the same time. This scenario however is one where we entirely removed the spreadsheet as the source of truth in favor of a better system with landed cost allocation.

For Katya's team, working in spreadsheets caused many inconveniences:

• Limited visibility: Landed costs lived in Excel and Google Sheets with many blind spots.
• Prone to errors: Many team members were working and collaborating in spreadsheets, which meant that sometimes, formulas were overwritten or incorrect data was added.
• Manual processing: Manual steps increased the chances of human errors.
• Time-consuming: The process required to copy and paste details from invoices into templates.
• Difficult to reverse mistakes: The process often led to issues and errors with invoices, which can be very challenging and difficult to reverse.

A better visibility into landed cost allocation

"When we go to Fulfil, and we look at the cost, we can trust it 100%. It saves time and adds credibility to the data. With our landed cost workflow, we can apply landed costs as we get those bills because it's automatically flowing through, and then it applies it to the average cost of the product. That means for every sales order, we have very accurate COGS." - Katya Lotzof, Associated Director, Logistics and Fulfillment Operations, Caraway 

Caraway's journey to better landed cost management happened in three distinct phases:

1. Before Fulfil: The team relied entirely on manually reconciled Google Sheets, which was time-consuming and error-prone.
2. After implementing Fulfil (but before Parabola): While they now had accurate costs within Fulfil, the team still needed to manually post and apply invoices correctly in the system, creating a bottleneck in the process.
3. Current state with Fulfil + Parabola integration: The team achieved full automation of their landed cost workflow:some text
   • Parabola's AI processing automatically extracts data from incoming invoices
   • The system automatically posts and applies this data to Fulfil when bills are sent to the finance team
   • Landed costs are immediately and accurately reflected in product costs
   • Real-time COGS calculations are available for every sales order

This new automated workflow eliminated manual data entry, provided immediate visibility into true product costs, and ensured consistent accuracy in their financial reporting. Not only did it save time, but it also gave Caraway's team confidence in their cost data for better decision-making.

"We've been using the flow for six months, and not once have we had an error. This allows us to decrease the amount of time that we spend on these manual steps. And it also decreases chances of any errors." - Katya Lotzof, Associated Director, Logistics and Fulfillment Operations, Caraway 

3. Stock position visibility

When a workflow is equally valued by both operations and non-operations teams, you know you have something valuable.

Before using Parabola and Fulfil, Caraway's team was team struggling with inaccurate data, which led to:

• A heavy, time-consuming process to get accurate inventory information
• Redundant communication between teams
• Delays in decision-making

To address these challenges, Caraway implemented a solution that not only improved their operations but also the way the different teams communicated with each other and accessed inventory data.

Centralized source of truth for all

With Fulfil acting as the central source for all inventory data, Katya's team built an integrated data pipeline. Using Fulfil's API, they extract key metrics, which are then processed through Parabola's automated workflows to create customized reports for different teams.

This solution provides comprehensive inventory insights through automated reports that include:

• Real-time available stock levels
• Days of inventory on hand
• Units in transit
• Complex calculations for bundle inventory

The impact has been transformative: every team at Caraway now has self-serve access to the data they need, eliminating the back-and-forth communication that previously bottlenecked decisions. The operations team no longer needs to act as an intermediary for data requests, making the entire organization more efficient and autonomous.

"Also, the teams can have access to this data whenever they want. Hopefully, no one is working at 3 AM, but they can pull the data at 3 AM without waiting for somebody's answer." - Katya Lotzof, Associated Director, Logistics and Fulfillment Operations, Caraway 

Leveraging technology for strategic growth

Katya's team was able to leverage the full force of the right technologies to address their pressing needs:

1. Leverage API connections: Using robust APIs, like those provided by Fulfil, to enable seamless data flow between your ERP and automation tools.
2. Combine ERP strength with automation flexibility: Your ERP should be a reliable source and single source of truth for your data. This enables you to then layer on automation tools, like Parabola, to build custom workflows that address your unique operational needs.
3. Prioritize real-time data access: Use solutions that provide up-to-date information to all relevant teams, reduce communication bottlenecks, and create faster decision-making for your business.
4. Automate repetitive processes: Assess manual, time-consuming tasks and look for opportunities to automate them using the combined power of your ERP and automation tools.
5. Focus on scalability: Choose solutions that can grow with your business, handling increased complexity in operations as you expand to new channels, markets and products.

"It improved the culture and motivation of the team. Now, our team doesn't spend hours and hours on repetitive work processes on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. So the system is doing it for them, and they can focus on something else like thinking how to grow our business and cut costs on anything as an example." - Katya Lotzof, Associated Director, Logistics and Fulfillment Operations, Caraway 

Caraway's teams leveraged the strategic integration between their robust ERP - Fulfil - and their flexible automation tool - Parabola - to improve their operations, and reduce potential bottlenecks while providing a better customer experience.

As you implement these changes, you'll find your team spends less time on repetitive tasks and more time on innovative solutions to grow your business and optimize costs.

Start by identifying your most pressing pain points and explore new technologies that can help you overcome them.

Curious how Fulfil can help you scale your operations? Reach out for a personalized demo!

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